


Lionheart

by Neyiea



Series: Golden [1]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is too good for this world; too pure, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s02e03 The Last Laugh, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jerome Valeska Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26497252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: Bruce is so, so scared, but when he turns and sees the flash of a knife he moves on instinct. He never wants to watch someone die in front of him again. Not even someone who’s threatened his life.Bruce saves Jerome years before a scene in a diner has a chance to take place.
Relationships: Jerome Valeska & Bruce Wayne
Series: Golden [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1944628
Comments: 42
Kudos: 136





	Lionheart

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea that has been kicking around in my head for a while; something like the diner scene except Jerome and Bruce are both younger and 100 times more vulnerable because neither one of them have really grown into themselves yet, and they're too young/too emotionally compromised to brush it all off after a handful of aching seconds. 
> 
> I just have a lot of Emotions about Bruce saving people and _especially_ about Bruce saving Jerome. Also, I detest Theo Galavan and want him to fail in all aspects of life before being buried, so...

Bruce is so, so scared.

There is a knife at his throat and his body is being used as a shield, and he’s only ever been this terrified once before. He can hardly breathe as his wet eyes dart from Alfred to Detective Gordon to Alfred again; each of their faces is grim in a way that just makes him panic even more, because if they could have they would have saved him by now. He’s trapped, he’s trapped, he’s trapped—

“I said that’s enough.”

Jerome begins to turn and Bruce turns with him, though Jerome’s arms start to loosen from around him. Bruce has a fleeting thought about breaking free and running to Alfred, but in the corner of his eye he sees the flash of—

A knife. A knife. A knife.

But for a split second in his mind’s eye the knife being raised changes to a gun, and he—

Reacts on instinct. Fear and familiar self-loathing—he should have done something, he should have done something, even if it hadn’t worked he should have at least tried—wash over him. 

In the span of one blink there are fresh tears in his eyes.

In the span of one blink he’s pushing Jerome out of the way.

Jerome, eyes locked on the man who’d been unconscious on the stage when Bruce had been dragged up onto it, the knife a hairsbreadth away from his neck, doesn’t see the push coming and he falls to the floor. That should be enough, it should, but Jerome scrambles for his own knife that he’d dropped and there are guns aimed at him and the man is advancing and—

And Bruce never wants to watch anyone die ever again. Never, never, never.

He throws himself over Jerome, struggling not to be flung to the side when Jerome begins to thrash. 

“Bruce!” Alfred yells.

“Bruce!” Detective Gordon yells.

“Stop!” Bruce clenches his eyes shut, terrified out of his mind but so, so sure that facing his fears and being brave also meant standing up for things that he believed in. “Stop,” he says, softer, choking on tears. “Please, stop.” Beneath him Jerome is going still. “I don’t—I don’t—”

He doesn’t want anyone to die _because of him, because he failed_ , even if the reason why they were being targeted was because they’d been threatening his life.

Strong, familiar hands grip him under the arms and hastily pull him upwards. Bruce’s fingers desperately dig into the fabric of a jacket but he’s not strong enough to hang on. He’s torn away.

“Alfred, no, they’ll kill him, they’ll kill him,” he cries. Alfred’s arms hold him up, off of the floor, and one of his hands presses Bruce’s face into his neck, shielding him from whatever terrible fate would befall Jerome Valeska.

“No they won’t, Bruce,” Alfred whispers to him, he sounds breathless with a mixture of fear and relief. “He’s unarmed and without a hostage. Gordon is taking him into custody.”

Bruce raises his eyes from Alfred’s neck.

His teary gaze is met by a burning hazel.

x-x-x

“An unexpected hero for an undeserving villain? There was a split second where it seemed that newcomer Theo Galavan would save the day, but instead it was our own Gotham native Bruce Wayne who took action which lead to Jerome Valeska, leader of the Maniax, being captured alive. He—” There’s a rush of people. There’s chaos. There’s—

Bruce Wayne walking down the steps.

“Bruce! Bruce! Do you have anything to say about the heroic act you performed tonight?”

Tonight is the first time a lot of people have seen Bruce Wayne. They knew of him, of course, everyone in Gotham knew of him, but his picture had never been published in the papers alongside his parents, as if in a wordless agreement to let the boy grieve in peace. He looks young. Fragile. His eyes are wet with tears. His voice, when he speaks, cracks with emotion. 

“No one deserves to be murdered.”

The camera jerks away, a voice from nearby snaps:

“If you lot aim _one more camera_ at my boy—”

The feed cuts off. 

x-x-x

“You know, most people would be content to just accept that it was your father who broke you out of Arkham, but I’m not most people, Jerome.”

Jerome could not care _any less_ about what Gordon was or wasn’t.

Theo Galavan, he thinks, clenching his fists and feeling anger surge to life inside of him. Liar, betrayer, would-be-murderer. He’d turned Jerome into a fool; thinking that someone could _believe_ in him when no one ever had before. Even if Jerome wanted to tell the truth—which he doesn’t; out of spite and hate and too many other things to name—about who it was that broke him out of Arkham, absolutely no one would trust him. He can almost imagine it: you know the man who almost stabbed me, yeah, it was him, honest. And if Tabitha and Theo were able to get him out of Arkham before, they’ll be able to get in again just to make sure he doesn’t have enough time to convince anyone that they weren’t the law-abiding citizens that they wanted to be seen as. He’s living on borrowed time.

Living. 

He’s alive.

Bruce Wayne, he thinks, and his fists begin to relax. Little hands pushing him away when Jerome himself couldn’t react fast enough, a body as a willing shield, a small voice demanding that everyone stop. Teary eyes meeting his as Gordon cuffed his hands behind his back. Jerome hadn’t been able to look away from Bruce until the boy had been carried out of sight. He hadn’t even turned to spit right in Theo’s face, he was so distracted.

No one…

No one had ever…

His chest feels tight. 

“Are you even listening to me?” Gordon’s hands slam down on the table. Jerome doesn’t let himself react. 

“Don’t really see what’s in it for me to tell you anything, Jimbo,” he drawls, so used to putting on an act that even now, shaken as he is, he reverts to old habits. Hide, deflect, mock. “Not like you can make me any promises about a trial or a reduced sentence or parole. I’m mad, Jim. There are so many things wrong with me that I’m _certifiable_. Y’know what that means? It means I’m Not Criminally Responsible.”

It also means that Arkham is it for him. There’s no getting out of there. Not unless he escapes. And he’ll doubtlessly be murdered way before that ever has a chance of happening. 

Living on borrowed time. Living. Alive. No one had ever gone out of their way to help him before, and maybe the push could be attributed to some kind of incorrectly wired fight or flight instinct but shielding him on purpose when Jerome had been using him as an unwilling shield fifteen seconds prior was not something that just _happened_. Telling people to stop was not something that just _happened_. There was something very wrong with Bruce Wayne.

Or maybe, a little voice says, maybe there was something right with Bruce Wayne, and the whole rest of the world was wrong.

Ha. What a stupid thought.

But Jerome…

He can’t get it out of his head. He can’t get Bruce out of his head. He closes his eyes and sees a glossy pair blinking at him from beyond the shoulder of a protective butler. He doesn’t understand why Bruce did what he did. He’s not sure if he’ll ever understand. He wonders if Bruce understands.

“You want to know who busted me out? Fine. But since you can’t make me any good promises, I’ll have to make a demand of my own.”

“What is it?”

No one had ever saved Jerome before.

“I want to talk to Bruce Wayne.”

“ _Absolutely not._ ”

“Then I guess we have nothing left to talk about.” He slouches in the metal seat, fingers tapping restlessly against the metal tabletop. “It’s too bad that your old flame is still running loose wanting to rip apart your new squeeze. Hope you can catch her before she does more damage.”

Detective Gordon snarls something under his breath and storms out of the room. Jerome stares at the mirror that he’s facing, hoping to make whoever happened to be sitting behind it squirm.

He was, maybe, safe here. If safe was really a word that he could use to describe a place where he himself had had a hand the deaths of a dozen cops and the commissioner. Frankly he wouldn’t be surprised if he met his end even before Theo and Tabitha came after him, curtesy of a cop wanting to enact a little vengeance and even more willing to give alibies. The only reason he wasn’t already dead was likely because it had been Detective Gordon to bring him in. He might die here. He might die in transport. He might die his first hour back in Arkham. 

Borrowed time. Borrowed time. Borrowed time. 

x-x-x

“ _Absolutely not,_ ” Alfred snarls over the phone and Jim winces.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, but—”

“Are you out of your mind, Gordon? I’ve only just got Bruce _safe_ at _home_ so that he can try and forget that this night ever happened, and you want me to bring him to the psychopath who wanted to kill him?!”

“Alfred, listen to me. Someone broke Jerome out of Arkham, someone who must have had a lot more power than a circus fortune teller. The letters we found in his father’s apartment, they’ve got to be fake.”

“That sounds like a problem for _you_ , Detective Gordon.”

“Alfred,” Jim’s voice softens. “What if Jerome targeted Bruce for a reason? What if it wasn’t chance? What if somewhere in this city there’s a person who wants Bruce to die and they’re willing to throw whatever madmen they can get their hands on towards him until one of them succeeds?”

Alfred is silent. Then, muffled, like he’s holding the mouthpiece of the phone to his shoulder:

“It’s just Detective Gordon, Bruce.”

And:

“I suppose if you want to talk to him.”

And, clear, because Alfred had obviously lifted the mouthpiece to hiss into it:

“Not a word of this to him.”

The phone is passed over.

“Detective Gordon.” Bruce’s voice is small over the line. He’d been so brave tonight. Jim thinks he might have almost had a heart attack when Bruce threw himself overtop of Jerome. He wonders if this is anything close to what being a parent feels like. “I overheard Alfred yelling at you.”

“Eavesdropping,” Alfred accuses in the distance.

“Does Jerome Valeska want to talk to me?”

“… Yes,” Jim admits with a sigh. His heart feels heavy. “Bruce, he might know something important, but if you don’t want to—”

“I’ll do it. We can be there within the hour.”

x-x-x

Jim sits across from Jerome Valeska, stomach churning. He doesn’t look surprised that Jim is back, but he doesn’t look like he’s celebrating any victories either. Whoever it was that broke him and the other inmates out of Arkham was going to want him dead; as soon as possible. Jerome doesn’t have any desire to help the police, but surely he felt the need to _help himself_. Maybe, if Jim tried a different approach, he could get this wrapped up and get a name before Bruce was pulled into this room and Jim was put on some kind of awful hit-list in Alfred’s head.

“Even if you don’t tell me anything, you realize that you’re going to be heading back to Arkham with a huge target on your back?” And Jim could protect him to some degree in here, though God only knew how many people were in the building who’d love to tear Jerome apart limb from limb. Essen had been a good woman, a good commissioner, she’d done all that she could with the corrupt city breathing down her neck like a monster looming over her shoulder waiting for her to make one wrong move. And now she was dead. If Jim were cruel, if Jim were vengeful, if Jim were able to turn a blind eye—

“I am aware,” Jerome drawls, sprawled in his seat in a way that looks uncomfortable. He’s trying to seem calmer than he is, Jim thinks, because he’s smart enough to know that as soon as he’s out of this building his hours left alive are numbered. “And there’s nothing you can do about it, Jimbo.”

It stings, the fact that there is very little that Jim can do to make sure that he’s safe. Not even keeping him in here indefinitely would likely save him from eventual harm, but if Jim had a name, a description, a location…

If Jim could get to them before they got to Jerome… 

“Do you really hate the police so much that you’d rather die with the secret than give us information that we could use to help you?”

Jerome laughs, loud and rough, rasping in a way that makes it seem forced. He curls in on himself as it continues on, and Jim’s fists begin to clench as it echoes eerily off of the walls. His laughter is even worse than the last time he’d had Jerome in questioning, when he finally admitted to killing his mother. What was the point of Arkham, Jim thinks, unsettled, if the people sent there only became even more warped? 

“I trust cops about as far as I can throw them,” Jerome says between breaths, and when he straightens back out his eyes have a sheen to them. “And I don’t want to talk to you anymore. You could always try beating the answers out of me, if you think you can stomach it.”

“I’m not going to hurt you Jerome,” Jim says through grit teeth.

“But you want to,” Jerome tells him, a bone-chilling look in his eyes. “I can tell when people want to. Wanna know why?”

The chair scrapes against the floor as Jim rises to his feet. He can guess, and it makes him sick, and it makes him angry, and it makes him feel too many things that he can’t afford to feel when he needs to be as level-headed as possible.

“They used you as a pawn, Jerome. Why would you let them use you as a pawn?”

“They told me that I was gonna be a star,” Jerome says, and then his gaze turns towards the ceiling. “But I guess I was really just a sideshow freak to them after all.” He laughs again, but this time it has a brittle undertone, and Jim has to leave the room before Jerome has the chance to see how much the sound of it upsets him.

x-x-x

Alfred’s hands are tight on his shoulders. Detective Gordon’s face before him is stern. The piece of gauze taped to Bruce’s throat itches. The cut underneath it stings. He’s still in his dress shirt and pants from earlier—his tuxedo jacket and bowtie had been stripped by the time he’d overheard Alfred on the phone—and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt quite so out of place.

Down a dim hallway inside of a locked interrogation room the teenager who’d hurt him earlier tonight now wants to talk to him. 

Alfred and Detective Gordon have a conversation above Bruce’s head, both of their voices low and serious. Neither of them are happy about this, but Bruce is determined to see it through. Jerome will be cuffed to the table. Jerome won’t be able to reach him. Jerome won’t be able to haul Bruce up into his arms and drag him away like he’d pulled him away from Alfred two hours ago; Bruce’s feet skittering helplessly over the floor as arms wrapped around him from behind and held him tight. 

It’s getting late and all of his adrenaline has already burnt out, but even if his body is tired his mind is restless. Bruce thinks about those burning eyes staring at him. Bruce thinks about how that intense gaze had stayed focused on him until Bruce hadn’t been able to stand looking back anymore and had tucked his face into the safety of Alfred’s neck. 

“Did he say why he wants to talk to me,” he asks, and the conversation above him halts. 

“He didn’t say,” Detective Gordon answers slowly. “But he won’t be able to hurt you, and if he threatens to I’m pulling you out of there immediately.”

“Ten minutes, at most, whether there are threats or not,” Alfred grits out. “And then you’re pulling him out of there even if that psychopath isn’t ready to give you any answers.”

“Ten minutes,” Detective Gordon agrees, and, as if it pains him to do so, Alfred’s hands eventually fall away from Bruce’s shoulders as the Detective kneels in front of him.

“We’ll be right behind the glass. Jerome’s hands are handcuffed to the table, and his legs are cuffed to the chair. He can’t get to you, Bruce, I promise that you’ll be safe.” His gaze darts down to the gauze at Bruce’s neck and his eyes fall shut briefly, as if he feels guilty that Bruce had been wounded in the first place even though it wasn’t his fault. “You were so brave tonight, Bruce. Reckless, but brave. I can’t be sure, but I think that maybe he wants to talk to you because you did something unexpected. Jerome might have found it funny that the person who he was threatening ended up saving him. He might try to unnerve you, or goad you, or scare you, but try not to let him get into your head.” His hand reaches out, hesitant, and softly ruffles Bruce’s hair. “Okay?”

“I’ll try, Detective Gordon,” Bruce promises. “I’m ready.”

He is led down the dim hallway. The locked door of the interrogation room is opened. Detective Gordon walks in first and Bruce stays still for a moment, fully shielded by him, in order to look at Jerome in secret. The teenager’s gaze turns to Detective Gordon, expression flat and seemingly bored.

“Jimbo,” he greets curtly.

His voice is so different than it was at the benefit; all laughing showmanship and dramatization. Jerome no longer has the upper hand. Jerome is no longer at center-stage. Jerome can no longer hurt him. 

Bruce inhales. Bruce takes a step into the room, then a step to the side so that he’s not concealed. Those intense eyes catch the movement and immediately snap onto him. At first there is something like a brief flash of shock—a slight widening of the eyes and a slight twitch of the flatly pressed mouth—as if Jerome had not actually expected Bruce to come at all, and then a wide, eerie sort of smile breaks out across his face.

“Bruce Wayne,” he drawls, eyes flashing with something that Bruce cannot put a name to. “My saviour.” 

Bruce startles at the epithet, at the stare, at everything. Even if Jerome cannot hurt him, he’s still scared. Even if he’s still scared, he wants to be brave. He briefly wavers where he is, halfway behind the protective shield of Detective Gordon’s back, but eventually he takes another step further into the room, standing beside the Detective and fighting to look composed.

Jerome’s eyes drop down to the gauze on his neck. The cut on Bruce’s throat stings just as much as it had when it was fresh and bloody. Bruce curls his hands into fists to fight down the instinctive reaction to lay them over his throat, as if to conceal it from Jerome’s sight even though he’d be well aware of what Bruce was hiding, having put it there himself. 

“Hello,” Bruce greets softly, more timid than he would have liked even with Detective Gordon’s reassuring presence right beside him, and Jerome’s gaze tears away from his neck to look him in the eye again.

“… Hello,” Jerome echoes, a gentle mirror to Bruce’s whispering, as his smile lessens and loses its eerie quality. It’s strange, to hear a voice that can be so loud and menacing and theatrical become soft.

His stare doesn’t break as Bruce walks further into the room, as Bruce settles into the chair opposite him at the table, as Detective Gordon lays his hands on the back of Bruce’s chair and—if Bruce were to guess at his expression—glares at Jerome from over Bruce’s head.

“You have ten minutes.”

“Gonna leave so soon?” Jerome shifts in his seat, fingers restlessly folding together in front of him. “Is it past your bedtime already?”

Bruce feels a frown tug at his mouth, and for some reason Jerome cracks another smile at him.

“Ten minutes,” Gordon reminds firmly. “And you’re lucky to be getting that. And afterwards—”

“You get a name, and whether you believe me or not is all up to you,” Jerome interrupts, not bothering to lift his gaze away from Bruce’s face.

The Detective lays one hand upon Bruce’s shoulder, another silent reassurance that he and Alfred will be nearby, and then he is walking out of the room.

And then they are alone.

Bruce isn’t sure what to expect even if Gordon had a guess as to why Jerome might have wanted to talk to him. To be made fun of, maybe. Or perhaps threatened. To be told that what he’d done didn’t matter. To be told that Jerome just wanted to see whether or not he’d have the nerve to come and face him. He waits for dizzying and hurtful statements to be thrown at him, he waits for cruel laughter.

He waits, but Jerome does not speak or laugh. Instead he stares just as intensely as he had when Bruce had been in Alfred’s arms. Bruce is too unnerved to tell him directly that it’s rude to stare, but after forty crawling seconds he cannot stand the silence any longer. 

“I hope that I didn’t hurt you when I pushed you,” he finds himself saying, and Jerome appears to snap out of whatever daze he’d been in. 

“Hurt me?” His voice is incredulous. “No. No, you—” He cuts himself off. He looks away. His hands curl into fists. He looks back. Underneath the table Bruce can hear the jingle of a chain, a signal that Jerome’s heel is rhythmically bouncing, as if he’s unable to keep still. “You saved me.” His voice is soft again, like his earlier greeting. His eerie smile from before is long-gone, replaced by an expression that is much more genuine and somehow much more painful. “I’ve been in a lot of—of tight spots and rough situations, I suppose you could say.” He laughs, brief and completely void of humor. It sounds wrong, even more wrong than his cruel, maniacal laughter had been. “But nobody’s ever helped me before. Ever,” he adds lowly, gaze distant as if fixated on the past. His clenched fists loosen again. “Not until you.”

An uncomfortable feeling twists in Bruce’s gut. He doesn’t know what it’s like to _not_ have anyone help you. He’s always had _someone_. He doesn’t know what he would do if he had _no one._

It must be sad, he thinks. It must be painful.

And, even worse than that, it must be terribly lonely. 

Bruce has felt sadness and pain and loneliness, but he’s always had Alfred’s steady presence to mitigate those awful feelings. He’s not sure what would have become of him if he didn’t have Alfred. Every day he would be hurting, distressed, anguished. Maybe even in the same way that Jerome was. The very thought of it makes his heart ache.

“I’m sorry that they didn’t,” he manages to say and, out of an instinct that he half understands, he begins to reach across the table. He always felt better when he knew that he wasn’t alone, and even if Jerome had hurt him it seemed like he could use something to drag him away from the dark path that his thoughts appeared to be turning down. Bruce cannot be willfully cruel, cannot let him have no one.

Bruce is here. Bruce can help him again.

As soon as their fingers brush Jerome’s hands jerk away and his entire body rocks back in the metal chair, wide eyes suddenly focusing on the present moment again. Bruce feels a strong, sudden pang in his chest as he quickly pulls his own hands back to the edge of the table.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” The words tumble out of his mouth, instinctive; the same promise that he might make to a frightened cat or dog that he’d happened to come across. But Jerome is not an animal; he’s a person—a teenager, only a year or two out of childhood, if truly out of childhood at all—who has flinched away from Bruce as if Bruce has the strength or desire to harm him.

Jerome’s expression twists at the words; a projection of aloofness mixing with something so vulnerable that Bruce can feel his eyes begin to sting with empathy. 

“I won’t hurt you,” he says again, voice wavering. “I promise.”

x-x-x

“Hello,” he greets in gentle response to Bruce’s acknowledgement. The tight feeling in his chest returns, even stronger than before.

Hello, hello.

It’s you, it’s you.

He hadn’t really expected him to come, and now that he is here Jerome cannot seem to look away. Here he is. Here he is. The brave boy who saved Jerome as if Jerome’s life actually meant something to somebody. 

Bruce is a small, fragile looking thing. Jerome had thought so upon first laying eyes on him, and he’d thought it again when he’d easily hauled Bruce up onto the stage away from his precious butler. But this delicate blue-blood had done more for Jerome than any adult or so-called ‘trustworthy figure’ in his life ever had, and maybe it’s because he’s so struck by that notion, or maybe it’s because his brush with death and his impending doom has shaken him up even more than he’d ever want to admit to even himself, but he lets too much slip when he starts to talk. Even a pampered, sheltered kid like Bruce was probably putting a few puzzle pieces together, and Jerome finds his racing thoughts twisting towards his past instead of his likely short future.

“I’m sorry that they didn’t,” Bruce says, though Jerome can barely seem to hear his voice. He’s caught up in cuts and burns and battery and bruising and—

Something slides against his fingers and, startled, he jerks back.

It’s an overreaction, and he hates how he seems to be unraveling all because the child who’d apparently decided that he was worthy of saving when no one else ever had is sitting in the same room as him.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Jerome fights to look cool, but he can feel the façade cracking as soon as he throws it up. Bruce’s hands stay on his own side of the table, now. He doesn’t reach forward again. 

His touch had been gentle. Soft.

Jerome doesn’t know how to respond to gentleness. Maybe he did when he was much younger, long enough ago that he cannot remember, but not anymore. Brutality was what he had been raised on, was what he knew best. Violence was much easier to take and dish out, now. 

“I won’t hurt you,” Bruce says again, his voice is just as watery as his eyes, and Jerome reels at it. “I promise.”

“Are you…” Are you about to fucking cry, he wants to spit out. Wants to pretend it doesn’t affect him. Wants to pretend he isn’t disoriented and struck by the notion that he is worth gentle touches, that he is worth tears. When was the last time someone touched him without meaning to hurt or manipulate him? When was the last time someone had cried for him and not because of him? The words—harsh, cruel, instinctive and protective; a smokescreen to cover up the strange fluttering in his stomach and the way it’s becoming increasingly difficult to breathe—build up but dissipate before they even have a chance to rove across his tongue. 

He is restless and he is aching and he doesn’t fully understand why; why he’s reacting like this when he should try to be mocking and crass instead of weak and vulnerable. 

His hands begin to tremble. He clenches them into tight fists. 

“I don’t think you could hurt me even if you tried,” he what he eventually manages to say. His tone is even but his voice is soft, hushed. He doesn’t have it in him to sound mocking, not right now, not when the person he’s talking to is looking at him the way Bruce is. Not when the person he’s talking to is Bruce. “You were only able to push me down because I wasn’t expecting it.”

Bruce’s eyes dart over his face, oddly pensive and astute for someone so young. He bites his lip as he looks down at Jerome’s hands and Jerome forces himself to relax, fingers splaying out against the metal table once again.

“Still,” Bruce whispers. “I promise that I won’t.”

Jerome’s chest feels tight again. So tight that it aches. He can’t remember if he’s ever felt like this before. He doesn’t understand. He’s not sure he’ll ever understand. He wonders if Bruce understands. 

Is his chest tight, too? Is he shaking, too?

“Why did you save me, back on that stage?” Did Bruce understand why he’d done it? Why had Bruce done it? Would he do it again, if he had the chance? “It would have been easier just to let me meet my maker, don’t you think?” Everyone else had thought so. He’d heard it, as Gordon cuffed him, as he brought him outside, as he brought him in here. If Theo had killed him according to plan no one would have troubled themselves to think too deeply about it. Theo would have turned himself into a hero and Jerome would have died and been forgotten; yesterday’s bad news. 

Bruce looks him in the eyes. 

“It was the right thing to do.”

Words catch in Jerome’s throat at the blunt honesty of the statement. Bruce’s expression is an open book and it’s easy to tell that, no matter what anyone else’s opinion might be, he believed in what he was saying completely. 

Jerome's eyes start to burn, and he tries to blink the sensation away.

Maybe there was something right with Bruce Wayne, and the whole rest of the world was wrong.

The thought doesn’t seem as foolish the second time around. 

“Would you do it again, if this night was done over?”

“Of course I would.” Bruce’s expression twists, like he can’t imagine anyone would accept the alternative. Against all odds—against his own better, bitter judgement—Jerome finds that he believes him.

Bruce had saved him, and he would save him again.

His chest aches, and he doesn’t understand, but maybe that’s not important right now, because beyond Bruce the clock on the wall is steadily ticking, and even if Jerome’s not entirely sure of the exact minute the countdown began he knows they don’t have much time left, because they hadn’t had much time to begin with. He aches even more at the thought of it, longing for more than he’s been given. 

“Our time is almost up.” Jerome’s fingers slowly creep towards the center of the table, and Bruce’s gaze darts down to them, watching the progression with his dark, expressive eyes. “I promised that I’d give the name of the person who busted me out of Arkham if I got to talk with you. I doubt giving them up’ll do much for me.” Theo has had hours, now, to clear his penthouse of any sign of Jerome. Fingerprints on windows and bannisters and tea cups, the red hair left in Tabitha’s hairbrush, any splatter of blood left purposefully and not-purposefully behind; he’d probably hired a discreet cleaning crew with his billions of dollars to wipe every trace of Jerome and the rest of the Maniax off of the Earth while they were all at the benefit. “The cops aren’t gonna believe me and I’ll still die, but—”

“Die?” Bruce’s expression is so openly horrified that if Jerome thought he could laugh without dissolving into screaming, he would.

“No one will care when I disappear,” Jerome says as blandly as he is able. His voice still wavers though, too unbalanced with Bruce sitting across from him to feign true detachment. “No one will notice.”

“I’ll care. I’ll notice.”

I don’t know if I can believe you about that, Jerome thinks, although he wants to. He wants to believe that Bruce won’t forget about him the moment that he leaves this place and Jerome behind. Even if Theo wipes every trace of Jerome off of the earth and destroys his body, he wants Bruce to remember him. 

Bruce was…

He was…

The first hero that he’d ever had. The only hero that he’d ever had. Bruce was important; special in a way that Jerome didn’t think he’d be able to express, and perhaps it was selfish of him but he doesn’t want that importance to be one-sided. He doesn’t want Bruce to think that what he’d done was nothing, that it meant nothing. He doesn’t want Bruce to forget. 

Bruce’s eyes rove over his face, and his brows furrow with a determined look.

“You don’t believe me,” he states. Instead of demanding that Jerome believe him, or letting the matter drop, he continues. “I’ll write to you,” Bruce vows, expression serious. “And you can write me back. I’ll notice if you stop.”

Jerome isn’t going to be alive long enough to receive or write letters, but the straightforward offer tugs at something increasingly tender in his chest. 

“Okay,” he agrees softly. “Write me a letter when you get home, Bruce, and if I’m still alive when it gets delivered to Arkham I’ll write you back.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

But he already knows his borrowed time is running out.

His shackled hands are stretched out as far as they can go, and Bruce very carefully closes the gap between their fingertips. His touch is light, barely-perceptible, and Jerome wishes that he hadn’t startled at it so badly before. Bruce gazes at Jerome’s face, cautious, and when it’s evident that Jerome isn’t going to pull back he goes further; hands twisting, palms up, thumbs resting against Jerome’s knuckles. Bruce is holding Jerome’s hands; soft, soothing, sweet.

At least, when Jerome is killed, he will remember what it was like to be touched kindly.

“The person who broke me and the other inmates out of Arkham, the person who told me to target you, was at the benefit tonight. You may have missed his introduction while you were hidden away, but if you look back at the footage you’ll see how happy he was to turn and face the camera in order to give his full name after laying it on real thick. You may not believe me, but I’ll tell you anyway.” A gift, or something like it, for being the first person—the only person—to save Jerome. “Theo Galavan isn’t what he seems, Bruce. He was going to kill me to turn himself into a hero. He was going to kill me so that it looked like he was saving you. He wants to get close to you for some reason, Bruce. Don’t let him.” Jerome grips at Bruce’s hands, hoping that he’s not holding him too rough, too tight. He doesn’t know how to be gentle, he hopes he’s not doing it wrong. “Whatever you do, don’t let him.”

Bruce’s eyes steadily meet his.

“I believe you,” Bruce tells him.

No one’s ever believed Jerome before, either. Not about important things; not about truths. Too many firsts are happening one after another; it makes Jerome feel thrown off balance. If it were anyone else he might demand to know why he was so easily believed, but he finds he cannot form words.

“I believe you, Jerome.”

You do, don’t you?

One more minute stretches out before them, crawling and racing at the same time.

“There are a lot of bad people in this city, Bruce Wayne, watch your back. You—” The tightness in his chest is painful, now. He doesn’t understand. He wishes he did. “You’re the only one—”

The door opens.

“Bruce,” Detective Gordon beckons. 

Jerome and Bruce stare at each other, holding each other’s hands. Jerome wishes this wasn’t goodbye. 

“Bruce,” calls another voice, the butler, and Bruce squeezes Jerome’s fingers.

“Write me back,” Bruce asks, voice wavering as if he wishes this wasn’t goodbye, too. “You promised.”

“I will.”

If I’m still alive. 

Bruce’s hands draw away, and Jerome’s fingers twitch at the loss. Bruce pushes the chair back from the table and stands. Their eyes are still locked.

“Goodbye,” Bruce utters, just as softly as his greeting. Jerome hopes—suddenly and fervently and with an intensity that he’d never felt when hoping even back when he believed in things like wishes coming true—that he lives long enough to receive that first letter. 

“Goodbye, Bruce.”

Don’t forget me once I’m dead, he thinks, and his eyes start to sting as Bruce turns away. It’s weak. It’s pathetic. His heart is aching, miserable and yearning all at once. Gentleness has worn him down in a way violence never had. He feels exposed and frail; nothing like the leader he’d been playing at. He did not become a star like he was promised. His legacy will not be death and madness. He will not leave a legacy at all. Still, he wants to be remembered at least by the person who’d thought his life was worth saving. 

“Bruce,” he calls lowly, voice cracking, and Bruce turns back to look at him. “Don’t forget me.”

Bruce’s eyes are glossy.

Jerome’s are, too.

“I won’t, Jerome,” he vows. “I promise I won’t.”

The door shuts.

Jerome sits alone for a stretch of time, trying to sort out why his breaths are still shallow and his eyes are still stinging.

He covers his face with his hands and feels the wet of tears against his palms. 

x-x-x

Tears are running down Bruce’s face. Jim feels actual, physical pain at the sight of it, and he doesn’t know what he could possibly do to make anything better.

Alfred immediately kneels before Bruce, wiping at his tears and petting at his hair and murmuring words that Jim can’t make out in a soothing tone, but Bruce is still biting back sobs and if Alfred can’t comfort him then Jim knows that he won’t be able to.

“Why does he think he’s going to die?” Bruce’s voice cracks, his breath hitches. He looks up at Jim, so distraught that it breaks Jim’s heart. “Please, Detective Gordon, don’t let him die. I saved him. He can’t—he can’t—” The sobs overtake Bruce and he hides his face behind his hands, at least until Alfred wraps him in his arms and Bruce conceals his face in Alfred’s neck.

“I believe him,” he says between shaking breaths. “Please believe him, too.” He’s trembling in Alfred’s arms and Jim hesitantly draws closer, a wavering hand reaching out and gently laying against the crown of Bruce’s head. Bruce tucks his face deeper into Alfred’s neck. When he speaks next his voice is muffled.

“He flinched away like I was going to hurt him.” Jim knows. Jim had seen. Jim had felt something inside of him twist at the obvious recoil. “Please, don’t let anyone hurt him.”

“I won’t,” Jim promises. “I’ll do everything that I can to make sure that he’s safe.”

Alfred sends a grim look up at him, accusatory in a way that Jim feels he deserves as he remembers another promise he’d made to Bruce. A promise that he still hasn’t kept.

But he’ll do his best to keep this one.

x-x-x

Jerome… Hasn’t necessarily gotten a hold of himself, but his eyes are no longer wet by the time Detective Gordon enters the room again. It’s one small thing to be pleased about, he supposes, because he’ll never be in the mood to let Jim see him with real tears running down his face. He’s too emotionally wrung out to call a mocking greeting, too caught up in the memory of small hands gently holding his own to think about how much he hates the idea of helping the police in any way, too struck by the idea that someone believes him even though he’s sure no one else would because no one else ever did when he told the truth. 

Jim slides into the chair across from him, but Jerome continues to look down at his own hands. He hears the Detective take in a deep breath, as if he means to throw himself into a speech, but all that comes out is a tired sounding sigh. Jerome’s gaze moves, not to look at Jim, but to look at the door from which he’d come, from which Bruce had come, where Bruce had gone.

Jerome wonders if he’s still nearby. Jerome wonders a lot of things.

“I heard what you told Bruce,” Jim says after a sustained silence. His voice is less accusatory than Jerome had expected it would be. “I assume that’s the same name that you would tell me?”

“I wouldn’t lie to him.” Jerome finally looks up at the Detective, and he’s not sure what he should feel at the look on Jim’s face; calmer than he had been during their previous interactions. There’s a brief spark of irritation, but the lingering effects of Bruce’s presence seem to smother it. He’s unbalanced; touched. In another few minutes maybe he will feel like himself again, but unfortunately Jim is here now. “Maybe to anyone else, but not… Not him.” Not Bruce. Never Bruce. The only one—the only one—

Jim slides something onto the table, a tape recorder. Jerome can’t seem to stop himself from staring at it.

“Imagine he’s still here, then, and tell me everything that you can remember; how you and the others got out, where you stayed, what you might have seen or overheard, anything about bigger plans that might be in the works.”

“You don’t actually believe me,” he states, matter-of-fact but not overtly mocking. 

“You’ve lied to me before, Jerome. Very successfully. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to discount everything you say. It…” Jim trails off and Jerome peers up at him, feeling slightly more like himself again; sharp, assessing, smart. Someone actually able to read a room and get an idea of what was going on inside of peoples’ heads. Someone who wasn’t reduced to tears by anything except for maybe crossing paths with the one right person in the whole entire very wrong world. “It is very odd that Theo Galavan made that speech of his so fluently, as if he’d practiced, and that he turned to face the camera in order to give his name. Although I have to admit that I find it odder that you allowed him any time in the spotlight, or gave him an opportunity to introduce himself during the broadcast.” Jim’s eyes are keen when they look at him, and Jerome feels his lips twitch.

“I do hate sharing the spotlight, but, like I said before, he told me that I was going to be a star.” His small smile fades away. “I don’t see how recording what I know is going to do any good. Even if you go over with a warrant you won’t find anything. Every trace of me will be long-gone by now. Even if I gave you descriptions of the place, who’s to say they won’t claim I broke in? Powerful people in Gotham can get away with murder. And let’s not forget that you might find a few things ‘odd’, but you don’t actually believe I’m telling the truth.”

“Maybe we won’t find anything. Maybe you won’t give us any information that can prove what you’re saying is true. But if it is Theo Galavan, and if it is Bruce that he’s after, then he’s got another thing coming because Bruce—” Detective Gordon pauses, expression twisting; fond and protective and stern. “Bruce believes you.”

Jerome’s breath catches. His eyes dart down to his hands again.

Bruce’s touch had been soft, warm, compassionate. 

It felt friendly. 

“So, you are going to tell me everything that you can remember, and then I am driving you to Arkham myself because I’m not letting anyone come after you without a fight. I promised Bruce that I would keep you safe.”

Jerome doesn’t know how to respond to that—such a stupid promise, he wonders how it came about—so he stays quiet.

Jim clicks a button; the tape recorder comes to life.

Jerome closes his eyes and gently folds his hands together. He keeps his touch light, reminiscent of Bruce’s hand holding, and thinks of those dark, wide eyes looking at him from across the table instead of Jim’s assessing gaze. He starts to speak. He tells the truth.

He hopes that he lives long enough to respond to a letter.


End file.
